Simple + Parallel + Local = Cellular Computing

In recent years we are witness to a growing number of researchers who are interested in novel computational systems based on principles that are entirely different than those of classical computers. Though coming from disparate domains, their work shares a common computational philosophy, which I call cellular computing. Basically, cellular computing is a vastly parallel, highly local computational paradigm, with simple cells as the basic units of computation. It aims at providing new means for doing computation in a more efficient manner than other approaches (in terms of speed, cost, power dissipation, information storage, quality of solutions), while potentially addressing much larger problem instances than was possible before—at least for some application domains. This paper provides a qualitative exposition of the cellular computing paradigm, including sample applications and a discussion of some of the research issues involved.